Friday, June 16, 2006

Packing for the bookfair

Well, I'm almost ready to go tomorrow. I've packed twenty cartons of fair to middling books, and am assembling supplies - handtruck, folding bookcases, tablecloths, bookends, change, calculator, sales slips and business cards, bags, pens and pencils, and decorative odds and ends for my booth. We pack up tonight and leave in the morning. And, oh joy, the weather is supposed to be thus: hot and humid, approaching 90 degrees and there's no air conditioning in the Expo building where the fair is held. This does not bode well for business - handling rare books and ephemera when your palms are sweaty is not the pleasurable experience it usually is under cooler circumstances. Plus the sticky weather makes setting up and breaking down a booth quite hot and bothersome. All this makes me deeply grumpy, particularly since it's been rainy and cool here in Maine for weeks now. I wish the rain could have held out for one... more... weekend... Anyway, I hope I will make back my expenses, plus some extra. And I hope all the booklovers aren't at the beach for the first sunny weekend of summer. Portland is on the ocean, so perhaps the fog will come in and cool things down a bit - the good old Gulf of Maine is like a refrigerator. I'll be back on Monday.